Category Archives: religion

There is a little known sect of Islam called the Druze. They are a small group mostly located in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan. Their faith is similar to that of other Ismaili Shi’a Islam with a little bit of Gnostic Unitarianism thrown in for good measure. What makes the Druze interesting though is the number one Pillar of their faith:

1. (Truth in words) Speak the truth to other Druze. However, lying to unbelievers to defend yourself or the community is OK.

That’s right, rule number one of Druzism is that you don’t talk about Druzism. And if you do talk about Druzism, feel free to lie through your teeth about it. This, of course, makes it completely impossible for outsiders (especially anthropologists) to study their religion. As Daniel Dennett put it in Breaking the Spell:

But if it was true, this would create a dilemma for any anthropologist: the usual method of questioning informants would be a hopeless wild-goose chase, and if he made the ultimate sacrifice and converted to Druze himself so as to gain entrance to the inner sanctum, he would have to admit that we on the outside shouldn’t believe his scholarly treatise, What the Druze Really Believe, since it was written by a devout Druze (and everybody knows that the Druze lie).

This naturally leads you to a Liars Paradox: if all Druzes lie about their religion then how do we know that they are telling the truth about their First Pillar? Maybe the Druze have become expertly adept at knowing when to tell the truth and when to tell a lie. They know to mix honest fact in with complete bullshit to constantly befuddle anyone trying to discover what they really believe.

And that seems like an admirable quality to me. Since beliefs are so immutable and silly in the first place why should we treat them so seriously? Lie about your beliefs as often as you can. Completely confuse your friends by telling them you are a Baptist Pagan. Mindfuck your family by saying that you believe every word of both The Urantia Book and Dianetics. Tell them that you believe six impossible things all at the same time! It’s not like they can prove you wrong anyways. Follow the path of apologetics everywhere by coming up with the most twist pretzel logic in the history of man. And tell them that Eris made you do it.

Pope Benedict XVI (you know, the guy that thinks he is the only true pope) is currently in the middle of an Africa-wide tour. On his first day in the AIDS-ravished country of Cameroon he made the following statement:

“It (AIDS) cannot be overcome by the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, they increase the problem.”

As a counter-point I, Pope Iason Ouabache the Skeptical make this statement:

“Automobile accidents cannot be overcome by the mandating of seatbelts in all cars. On the contrary, they increase the problem. Sure, the statistics show that traffic fatalities have gone down worldwide since the seatbelts have become wide spread. But we believe that the best way to prevent these deaths is to tell people to not drive at all. Or you may obtain a specialized license from the Holy Church of the Skeptic after you swear to never ever drive dangerously.”

Increasing complex systems have a tendency to collapse in more catastrophic ways.Â Hence, when George Soros and Nassim Nicholas Taleb say that this economic crisis will be worse than the Great Depression, I am not surprised at their appraisal.

However, what does a Depression actually mean, in our current socio-political economic condition?Â No doubt, circumstances across those three areas of analysis do differ from the 1930s and so we have to ask ourselves, what does that mean for us?Â The only viable mass movements of the moment seem to be, at least in the American contexts, religious ones.Â In the UK, I don’t think even that is possible.Â While I think the worries about fascism, at least in parts of the Third World, are valid, platforms explicit about such a program are rejected, and not just because of the negative connotations of such labels.

And how will the internet affect such a Depression, as well?Â Will we see spontaneous protests, or even peaceful urban takedowns, orchestrated via Facebook and Twitter?Â Or will the net become a talking shop, the modern day equivalent of a soapbox, where gripes and despair about our current conditon are aired but little else is actually done?

Obviously, my thoughts turn to recent graduates and attempts to get jobs, for personal reasons.Â Will unemployment and the lack of prospects lead to, as it did in Italy in the 60s, a militant intellectual movement who felt they had more in common with the proletariat than their (usually) middle class backgrounds?Â Or could it breed a new class of cosmopolitan guerrilla entrepreneur, an anti-Davos man if you will.

I could really do with a team of sociologists and cultural theorists right now.

And now for something completely different. Apparently everyone’s favorite lovable cartoon skateboarder Bart Simpson is a Scientologist and has been doing robocalls in the greater Los Angeles area promoting his upcoming auditing session.

In case that video gets pulled like the YouTube video did it wasn’t REALLY Bart but voice actresses, Nancy Cartwright making the calls. She’s thrilled about reaching OT VII and wants everyone to come see her speak at the Scientology Center in Hollywood. Nancy is currently in trouble with Fox for unauthorized use of the Bart Simpson voice and name. No word yet on how they will punish her.

Word is that Anonymous will also be attending the event on Saturday in full Simpsons gear.

And I guess I’m bringing up the rear.Â My section here is called ChaoSkeptic which is also the name of my personal blarg (ZOMG, GO THERE NOW, I AM A SHAMELESS WHORE!!).Â I’ll be doing the religious beat here.Â I like hanging out in the tiny sliver of the Venn diagram where religion and skepticism meet.Â Where belief meets disbelief. Where faith runs face first into reality.Â I love the trenches of the Culture War and will do my best to send back dispatches for all of you.Â Hopefully hilarity will ensue.

I guess I should take this time to introduce myself and why I am using the name ChaoSkeptic.Â I’m going to assume all of you know what Discordianism since you are already here.Â Eris. Discord. Strife. fnord.Â Yada yada yada. But I also see Discordianism as an irreligious stance that focuses on the illusion of order and chaos in the universe. It is an attempt to escape dogma of all types. Or as I have called it elsewhere, “militant subjectivism”.

Skepticism, on the other hand, is “a scientific or practical, epistemological position in which one questions the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence”. It is the rejection of all supernatural explanations in favor of critical thinking and inductive reasoning.

Now you may ask, how do this two things ever intersect and how can someone be a disciple of both? One is about being completely subjective while the other relies whole-heartedly on being objective. As I see it, the main similarity between them is the outright rejection of beliefs. As the late Robert Anton Wilson said, “belief is the death of intelligence.” Or as another wise man said, “A belief is just a thought you keep having.” Holding on too tightly to one ideology or another stops all thought. We should strive to question things as often as possible. And don’t stop questioning until you stop moving.

I hope to point out as many different strange beliefs that are out there in the universe and give a long and hearty laugh at all of them.Â With any luck you’ll be laughing along with me.

Some time later on this spring the Supreme Court of the United States will hear the rather interesting case of Pleasant Grove City (Utah) vs. Summum. For those who have never heard of Summum, they are a religious group based in Salt Lake City founded by a man named “Corky” Ra. It’s sort of Gnosticism meets Mormonism meets Scientology. Weird but mostly harmless.

Back in 2003 they petitioned the government of Pleasant Grove, Utah to ask if they could erect a monument to their â€œSeven Aphorisms of Summumâ€ next to a thirty year old monument of the Ten Commandments in the city park. The city, of course, said no and Corky, of course, filed a law suit saying that his free speech rights had been violated. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit agreed with Corky, stating that since the park is a public forum and that the Ten Commandment monument was private speech from the original donor Corky is allowed to erect his monument. The city appealed it to the highest court in the land which that brings us around to today.

Interestingly enough, Pleasant Grove is being represented by Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law & Justice, a right wing Christian group that has often fights against the separation of church and state. I say interesting because the ACLJ is going against their usual argument that religious groups should have equal access to public property. They are actually arguing that the original Ten Commandments monument government speech rather than private speech and that the park isn’t a public forum. This means if they win there would be a precendent in the legal system saying that monuments on public property is government speech and every single Ten Commandments monument in America would be subject to removal.

However, if Summum wins it could also be a huge win for all minority religions and irreligions. All public property that currently has a religious monument on it could be considered an open forums that would have to accept almost any religious monument. Discordians could argument for a monument to the Law of Fives. The Pastafarians could argue for even more Flying Spaghetti Monster statues. Atheist could ask for a monument to… um… nothing? It would be just like the chaos in the Washington state capitol last December times several thousand. Sounds like a great idea for a GASM to me.

My favouritest Pagan website on the planet, MysticPricks, has sunk to a new low. Not content with promoting woolly thinking, historical inaccuracy, superstitious dogma, sectarian hatred and allowing cryto-racists to have the run of the site, they’ve now stooped to the level of pimping The Church of Scientology!

As usual, click to view a larger image.

The question is, of course, is what to do with such information? Apparently, the site owner’s wife has already stated that to take it down would be to discriminate against Scientologists. You know, in the same way that arresting and incarcerating Al-Qaeda members is discriminating against Muslims. I know only a few weeks ago at least one member on the site made a detailed post listing the wrongs of the Church, so either they didn’t read the post (in which case they are bad admins, but then we already knew that), or they just don’t give a shit, and are more than willing to promote the Scifag cult because of the filthy lucre it brings in.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — An Indian Trail accountant is in jail, charged with threatening to kill senator and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

According to court documents, Jerry Blanchard called Sen. Obama the anti-Christ and said, “If he gets elected, we have a problem.”

Then according to the federal affidavit, Blanchard, a father of two teenage daughters, spells out his plan — all while sitting in the Pineville-Matthews Road Waffle House.

Secret Service agents say Blanchard told two others eating at the restaurant on July 15 he planned to buy a handgun from Hyatt’s Gunshop on Wilkinson Boulevard. He also planned to buy a rifle and a laser scope, saying “Iâ€™m worth $50 million. Obama and his wife are never going to make it to the White House. He needs to be taken out… that man will never know what hit him… I just may do that, Iâ€™ve got the money and the clout.”

and I just knew it was going to be a clusterfuck of epic tinfoil hattery and right-wing paranoia. I was not disappointed.

In the thread about the dreaded Heinz Mayo “gay” ad, one respondent stated that atheists are infiltrating organisations that influence government, educational policy, etc.

Can atheists really do that? After all, they are not an organised as such. Is the real truth merely that more people are rejecting religion and becoming de-facto atheists, such that the proportion of atheists in all sorts of organisations is increasing because of that, i.e. it’s mere statistics?

Is it really a conspiracy?

A sensible start….surely this cannot last. Atheism debates are like those on abortion…pure flamebait.

YES Mikey my man, oh yes!! Read Peter Hitchins, an ex-communist..

The communist party used to say…go out and submerse Into the establishment, government, schools, authorities…I’m not quoting but find out Mikey. Look at government… the number of ex-communist party members and ex-marxist types…

YES, THE COMMUNIST CONSPIRACY IS BACK IN FASHION! POST #1 BITCHES, AND WE’RE ALREADY BACK TO THE 1950S, BOO-YAH!

Just look at the members in the NUT to find out how far these people have infiltrated education and the ‘elf and safety brigade in local councils are teeming with them. Even the higher ranks of the police have them in abundance.

Reminder: if lots of educated people agree, its not because of superb reasoning skills and access to more factual information, its because they are being manipulated by a conspiracy.

I haven’t read anything this funny in a long time! “These people” indeed. Atheists were around long before anyone caught religion, and do you know what? We’re not communists, marxists or fascists, we’re just people who lead ordinary decent lives without believing in any gods – and you sound so horrified, as if we’re trying to undermine society!

Atheist disinformation agents have even infiltrated the Daily Mail!

i think you are right. you only have to look at Great Britain with high teenage pregnancies, broken homes, political correctness and not being allowed to make judgements about peoples’ lifestyles. There are people being shot dead for being in the wrong place.

I think having christian values did keep people on the right track.

Goddamn those fucking Atheists and their lack of morals making it unacceptable for me to persecute teh gheys. I see no unintentional irony in my previous statement whatsoever, either.

The people that have infiltrated our society have no religious preferences. They probably call themselves atheists but their religion is Marxism. They don’t worship a deity, just an idea that is a proven failure. I suppose that’s the difference: nobody has ever proven that God does not exist whereas Marxism has been tried and has failed miserably.

But that won’t stop those who are hungry for power over the proletariat. Antyjax is obviously familiar with the type, and there are thousands of them, in education, local government and the criminal justice system. It isn’t an organised conspiracy, but each of them are following the teachings of Gramsci and the Frankfurt School.

I’m sure that sounded really smart in his head.

Atheists tend to have the evangelical zeal of all religious zealots. They are so arrogant in their personal beliefs and self esteem, that they will not brook alternative belief systems!

All the PC claptrap, about renaming Christmas and the like, are all down to Atheists in Local Government.

What makes their actions all the more disgusting are their attempts at blaming Muslims, or Hindus, etc.. These unfortunates find themselves beset by Press Commentators, blaming them for something for which they have no knowledge, or inclination! To the contrary. They mostly enjoy the family aspects of our CHRISTIAN celebrations!

(The Muslims also hold Christ in high esteem and see no reason why they should not celebrate Christmas alongside Christians!……… Go to Saudi Arabia and you will find that out in short order!)

Yeah, goddamn Atheists and their Winterval! Religious nutters of the world, UNITE and let us be rid of this menace.

The point of the Bible, and Christianity is to promote harmony and a moral life. The 10 Commandments are good rules for morality, and which every decent human being will follow naturally. As our community has gone away from the church and the fear of what comes next (heaven, hell?), we are heading for barbarism. This is already clear by what is happening in every inner-city and now suburban streets with young men and woman being killed in cold blood for little or no reason. All religions have their own version of the 10 Commandments which again are moral pointers for the followers.

To go to the original question, Jax has answered it pretty well in my opinion. So yes I do really believe that atheists have infiltrated government at every level, hence it will reach the education system. Private church schools, I suspect, are an exception.

Britain was harmonious back when peasants believed the King ruled by the divine grace of God, and I approve of this system. Speaking as an agnostic.

I am more alarmed that teachers are using their jobs to poison the minds of our young children with their left wing convictions. It isn’t as if the teaching profession can be proud of their acheivements as so many children leave school without the ability to read or write properly. Universities are having to train youngsters the basics before they can persue the courses at Uni.

As for the police they have alienated the majority of the law abiding population with their policy of appeasing criminals and taking ot out on the rest of us.

Because ignorance and irrational brutality are hallmarks of all Atheist thought.

I cannot see God but I can have faith In God’s existence. Science may someday come to a proof of the truth or falsehood of a creator, but It Is In no position today to do either. If you say..”I see no evidence that there Is a God” fair enough. But go as far as saying..”I know there Is no God” and you have taken a leap of faith as large as that of any theist.

Although theists are better, because they are right. Or something.

I’m a Christian and I believe In God. It’s really quite easy, I believe there Is one God. He actually Loves you, and you try to mock and sneer, and yet he still Loves you. But I don’t actually have to explain my BELIEF to you, rather you have to explain your ASSERTION that there Is no God?? And you have to do a lot better than “I know there are no God’s because there Is no evidence.” You have a BELIEF that there Is no God, and that Is fine. But you don’t KNOW. So for all your assertions, you’re not being very assertive are you?

Because asserting an unknowable without evidence is an excellent system of logical thinking.

I believe the heading of this post is misleading and would be less so if it read “are the extreme left infiltrating organisations such as education ,government,etc.the answer is yes they are and always have done just because tony blair denied them the right to stand as labour candidates doesn’t mean they have gone away or changed their beliefs they are still out there burrowing away into all aspects of our lives,and i don’t believe it will be long before they rear their heads again and feel safe to come out into the open again.

They are in all probability atheists,but that is not the b all and end all of their beliefs but may be the basis for them.The question is ,are they a danger to our society must be an undoubtable yes,but is far more outreaching than just are they atheist !Many atheists are content in their non belief,and content to let the rest of us believe what ever we want.

The extreme left are not .

Atheists are a front for the Communists! COMMUNISTS!!12!

I find it unbelieveably funny how non believers get so upset about something they don’t believe in

ok, you don’t believe in God. thats your choice. but why do you get so angry and upset with those of us who do believe in God? I find that it is especially the Christian faith which gets such anger etc directed towards it

I do not for one second believe in the hindu religion. However I don’t get all worked up and angry about it. Let them believe what they do.

atheisem is a belief aswell btw

Well, last time I checked, it wasn’t Hindus who had a majority in this country. But of course that couldn’t be the reason, could it?

On numerous occasions, I have had an atheist say to me something along the lines of

“we don’t know what caused the universe”

yet they will boldly claim that there is no evidence of God. If God caused / created the universe then it stands to reason that the universe (in fact all of creation) is evidence of God. Are you able to prove that God did not cause / create the universe?

Incidentally, to answer your question about why I believe in God, there are two reasons.

1. I believe what is said in the Bible about Him. The central theme is that before God, all have sinned and the punishment for that sin is death. God loved the world so much that He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross so that people can be forgiven of their sins. Only in Christianity can I find this redemptive message where salvation is based on what Jesus Christ has done, not on some works-based method present in all other religions.

2. Since becoming a Christian, I have the testimony in my life as to answered prayer, or how God helped me through a difficult situation. The personal evidence for my faith is therefore my testimony. Now others can choose what alternative explanation they give to what I attribute to God at work, but description of something doesn’t alter what it is. It only affects one’s perception of it.